FOREIGN WORKERS STRANDED ACROSS THE WORLD BY PANDEMIC: UN REPORT

"Lots of migrants that were on the move, some of them wanted to return to their country of origin, precisely because of the pandemic," he said, adding that others had become "stranded" on their migratory routes.

Stranded migrant workers make face masks at Jesuit St. Stanislaus school in Mumbai, India. (Credit: Father Frazer Mascarenhas/courtesy to Crux.)

Thousands of migrants have been left stranded by the coronavirus pandemic, unable to move due to lockdowns and border closures around the globe, the United Nations said Thursday.

The UN's International Organization for Migration said in southeast Asia, east Africa and Latin America, many were attempting to return to their countries of origin but were unable to do so.

Migrant camps were "very prone" to spreading the disease, IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino told reporters in an online briefing."There are thousands of stranded migrants all over the world," he said.

"Lots of migrants that were on the move, some of them wanted to return to their country of origin, precisely because of the pandemic," he said, adding that others had become "stranded" on their migratory routes.

"They are blocked in the border areas in very difficult conditions without access to minimal care, especially health screening," he said.

"This is a source of enormous concern."

Vitorino said the IOM was asking governments to allow aid workers in to access large groups congregating near borders.

- Asking the impossible -

The former Portuguese defence minister said overcrowded conditions among migrants stranded at borders are so bad that "social distancing is unthinkable and access to water and sanitation is quite a challenge. "We cannot ask people to do what is impossible," he said.

"If the disease spreads in the camps it will have a major impact."

The IOM manages around 1,100 camps worldwide and assisted roughly 2.4 million displaced people in 2019.

Some 220 cases of COVID-19 illness have been reported in IOM-run migrant camps in mainland Greece and been treated in the Greek healthcare system.

Vitorino said he was particularly concerned about what might happen if the virus took hold in Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh, where more than a million Rohingya refugees have fled to from neighbouring Myanmar.